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Pastoralists' livelihood on natural rangelands is increasingly influenced by the destructive impacts of climate change. While the phenomenon of climate change continues globally, it is expected to put more pressure on unfavourable rangelands and pastoral households whose livelihood source is only based on pastoralism activities. Thus, it is vital to reduce the livelihood vulnerability of pastoralists to climate change impacts through appropriate adaptation strategies. Accordingly, the aim of the current study was to assess the compatibility of adaptation strategies with the vulnerabilities posed by climate change to pastoralists' livelihoods. The evaluation was based on a spatial survey that was conducted with a random sample of 393 Iranian pastoralists distributed in the counties of Eghlid, Sepidan, and Shiraz in the northern Fars province. The results showed that pastoralists were commonly vulnerable in terms of high-risk exposure and low adaptive capacity. About 27 livelihood vulnerability patterns were detected using data mining based on the relationships among the sub-components of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptation in three counties. The scores of the livelihood vulnerability were high in most of the livelihood vulnerability patterns. Only four patterns obtained relatively low vulnerability scores through accurate decisions on adopting the appropriate set of adaptation strategies. According to the low compatibility of pastoralists' livelihood with climate change, the results of this study can assist policymakers to introduce appropriate adaptation strategies for pastoralists. In this regard, appropriate adaptation strategies in each vulnerability pattern are able to reduce livelihood vulnerability to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most scholars support the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as one of the major causes of the increase in global climate change. Therefore, reducing CO2 emissions from the main emitter countries, including Iran as the sixth emitter, is important to deal with the harmful effects of global climate change. Accordingly, the main aim of this paper was to analyze the social, economic, and technical factors affecting CO2 emissions in Iran. Previous studies on diverse variables affecting emissions are not very accurate and reliable as they do not consider indirect effects. This study applied a structural equation model (SEM) to estimate the direct and indirect impacts of factors on the emissions by panel data for 28 provinces of Iran from 2003 to 2019. According to geographical location, three distinct regions, the north, center, and south of Iran were considered. The findings suggest that a 1% increase in social factor directly increased CO2 emissions by 2.23% (in the north) and 1.58% (in the center), but indirectly reduced emissions by 0.41% (in the north) and 0.92% (in the center). Hence, the total effects of the social factor on CO2 emissions were estimated at 1.82%, and 0.66% in the northern, and central regions, respectively. In addition, the total effects of the economic factor on CO2 emissions were estimated at 1.52%, and 0.73% in those regions. The results of this study showed that the direct effects of a technical factor on CO2 emissions were negative in the north and center. However, they were positive in the south of Iran. Based on the empirical results of this study, three policy implications are discussed in order to control CO2 emissions in regional distinctions of Iran as follows: First, policymakers should pay attention to the social factor, i.e., the growth of human capital in the southern region with the aim of increasing sustainable development. Second, Iranian policymakers must prevent unilaterally increasing gross domestic product (GDP) and financial development in the north and center. Third, policymakers should pay attention to the technical factor, i.e., improving energy efficiency, as well as upgrading information and communications technology (ICT) in the northern and central regions, and limiting the technical factor in the southern region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the impacts of small‐scale farmers on food security enhancement were estimated in three dimensions of food availability, food access and food utilization. In the current study, a systematic review and meta‐analysis have been performed to synthesize results from 75 original articles. It includes the pooling of data that quantitatively investigate whether or not causal links characterized in the original articles remain valid across a broader scope of the literature. The findings show that farmers who are small‐scale in natural/physical capital would lead to higher median food production and agricultural productivity, compared with small‐scale farmers in financial capital, at about 19% and 15%, respectively. Meta‐regression results indicate that small‐scale farmers in natural/physical capital have significantly positive effects on the average agricultural productivity, food income and biofortification. By contrast, farmers who are small‐scale in financial capital have negative effects on food security. The influential role of these small‐scale farmers should also be considered since food insecurity leads to socio‐economic implications. Therefore, it is recommended to cultivate higher value crops, to participate in various income‐generating activities such as fisheries and forestry, and to pay agricultural credits. The effect of the size of small‐scale farmers on global food security is very useful for policymakers to plan for a world without hunger. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]